Big town or small city?
With a population of 72,000 (in a metro area of a quarter million), Appleton is part of one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the Midwest. The area’s size, cultural complexity and breadth of businesses give you ample opportunities for internships, research projects, civic engagement and community service.
You can get here from there.
While it may sound like a tiny outpost, Outagamie
County Regional Airport—only 6 miles from campus—
serves Appleton by connecting to seven major hubs on
three major airlines: Chicago and Denver (United); Detroit,
Minneapolis, Cincinnati and Atlanta
(Delta); and Milwaukee (on our home state
favorite, Midwest).
About that weather...
We’ll get to the point: it can get cold here (average January high/low:
24°F/7°F), and it snows (about 4 feet per winter). We like to think of it
as “character-building” weather. (If our students from equatorial countries
can handle our weather, anybody can.) Winter’s payoff: spring is
spectacular. Fall is pretty fabulous, too.
Get out(side)!
Running, hiking, cycling, rowing, sitting.
If you do any of these things—and there’s
a good chance that you do at least one
of them—you’ll have plenty of outdoor
places to do them throughout the area:
from High Cliff State Park at Lake
Winnebago five miles from campus, to the
northward-flowing Fox River running along
Lawrence’s edge, to dozens of parks
within a two-mile radius of campus.
College Avenue
Chicago has the Magnificent Mile.
Appleton has College Avenue, with a
dizzying array of restaurants (from fivestar
dining to late-night pizza), a bunch of
great coffee shops (from the ubiquitous
Starbucks to locally owned Brewed
Awakenings and Copper Rock), and
dozens of stores. All of it is right outside
your door at Lawrence.
Broadway on College
A half mile from campus, the
Fox Cities Performing Arts
Center brings the entertainment
world to Appleton. The fiveyear-old, $45 million jewel
seats 2,100 (with the “worst
seat in the house” barely
100 feet from the stage).
Appleton—not Milwaukee or
Madison—is the host for the
Wisconsin premieres of The
Lion King and Wicked.
Did you know?
On August 20, 1882, Appleton became the first
city to generate electricity commercially. (Two
weeks later, New York City became the second
city to do so.)
